1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of music recognition, and more particularly to a method of recognizing a music score included in an image and extracting and removing the staff lines from a music score in the image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile terminals have become common practice, and many people use a personal mobile terminal for voice or data communication. As mobile terminals become recognized as a personal apparatus for many people, rather than just for simple voice or data communication, their use has been extended to represent a multimedia apparatus including many additional functions, such as an MP3 player, a camera, a video player, an electronic dictionary, a game player, etc.
Moreover, users desire a mobile terminal with additional functions for other purposes. Mobile terminal manufacturers try to manufacture mobile terminals having various functions to distinguish their product from that of other companies in order to meet the user's desire.
Meanwhile, as technologies for image recognition are developed, a technology for extracting a music score from image data which is generated by scanning a music score printed on a sheet using an image recognition apparatus, such as a scanner, has developed in various ways.
The staff lines act as a cause for noise in detecting symbols of the music score, but at the same time they provide important information for analyzing and recognizing the symbols. Therefore, in a method of recognizing a music score included in an image, it is very important to detect and remove the staff lines from a music score.
Most images of music scores are generated by recognizing an image on an original copy printed on paper through an image recognition apparatus, e.g., a scanner. This may may cause the music score included in the image to be inclined or bent. Conventionally, the vertical run-length coding, the Hough conversion, the line adjacency graph (LAG), and the DP matching are applied in order to solve these problems. However, in these methods, is a limitation in achieving a good image quality of a music score image scanned at 300 DPI, using an image recognition apparatus such as a scanner. When a music score image is obtained through a camera provided in a mobile terminal, the image quality is even further limited. Further, it is likely that distortion occurs in accordance with a location or an angle of an image, which causes the music score to be inclined or bent. As a result, a music score included in an image obtained by using the above-mentioned methods is difficult to be recognized.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method of directly recognizing a music score included in a low-quality music score image that may be obtained through a camera provided in a mobile terminal, without any editing program.